Capturing Northern Lights

Heading to somewhere up north during the holidays? Want to try shooting northern lights for the first time? During our trip to Lofoten, Norway in November, we were lucky enough to see them for one night. All the stats were pretty active during the whole week, but every other night was way too cloudy. So you need clear sky to actually see them. Just for a side note, this was also the very first time for me to actually see northern lights in live.

What come to camera settings, more experienced aurora borealis photographers might give different tips, but I’m telling what works for me. I’m trying to keep the ISO rather high, something like 1600-3200 because to capture the shape of the northern lights you have to keep the shutter speed rather fast. Mine was around 6-10 seconds. 10 was already too much for my taste, and they started losing the shape. I’d recommend keeping the aperture almost open. Maybe wouldn’t use f1.4, I’d step it down to f2 or something like that. Also to keep the starts visible and not starting to see them move, the shutter speed needs to be set based on so called 500-rule. You basically divide 500 with the full frame equivalent focal length you’re using. For example I was using 20mm on my Leica T (with APS-C size sensor has crop factor of 1.5x) and that is 30mm in full frame. 500/30 is 16.6. The result give you the maximum shutter speed time in seconds you can use, so it was 16.6sec. More info here.

Of course, if you want those start trails to be visible, by all means use longer shutter speeds, what ever you’re looking for. Camera should be used in manual mode, so it’s much easier to find the right settings.